The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day

by Zuko, Joseph

  “Shit!” Cliff’s stomach wanted to eject the beer he drank not that long ago. He wiped his hand and bloody flashlight against the small clean spot on the man’s uniform. He wiped the light a few more times and extracted the cleaver from the dead man’s skull.

  Cliff put his back against the railing and inched up the stairs. The light now shined with a soft pink glow. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t slow his breathing.

  He crested the landing and ascended the last flight of stairs to the second floor. He stepped up to the door and peeked through the window. The hallway was dark. Only a few bedroom doors were open letting sunlight into the place. His mother’s room was in the middle of the hall. Room 210. Again he knocked against the door and waited.

  He heard no movement.

  The door creaked open as he stepped out into the second floor hallway. He couldn’t move the flashlight fast enough to see everything. The dim old bulb only shined a two foot wide pink cone of light. Something scurried along the floor and grabbed at Cliff’s leg.

  Without looking he sliced the cleaver an inch from the back of his calf. He could feel the impact of the blade hit something. On the follow through he spun away from whatever was on the ground.

  The pink light flashed across the face of a young, attractive woman in a nurse’s uniform. Her eyes were the familiar black of the infected. From the ground she held up what was left of her forearm. Her wrist and hand dangled by a tiny stretch of tissue.

  She lurched forward on her good arm. Another old body lay on the floor next to the infected nurse. Its body was riddled with bite marks. She had been feeding for a while. Bits of human meat hung from her adult braces.

  Cliff leapt back away from her reach. One of the nurse’s legs had been eaten to the bone. Only a few scraps of muscle left. That was why she was stuck on her belly. Cliff wasted no time and gave her a taste of his cleaver. The wrecked body dropped dead.

  In the bedroom, behind the dead nurse, sat an old man. His belly was extended past the realm of normal fat belly. It was so overloaded from the meat of her leg, it kind of looked like a pregnant old man. The weight of the ingested flesh kept it floor-bound.

  Something moved around in one of the bedrooms down the hall. Cliff’s heart raced like a jackrabbit in his chest. A woman’s screams were followed by a gunshot. A muzzle flash came from room 210.

  He took the last few steps to her door and pushed it all the way open. Another gunshot rung out. The round punched through the doorjamb inches from Cliff’s head. He ducked.

  “Stop shooting!” he screamed into the room.

  “Clifford? Is that you?” the familiar old voice called to him from the room.

  “Mom?”

  “Clifford, did I get you?” she slurred.

  “No. Where are you?” he searched the room with the flashlight. Then he saw a shaky hand sticking out of the closet. A snub-nosed revolver waved around unsteadily in a wrinkled old fist. Cliff stepped into the room and locked the door behind him. His feet hit something on the floor. He aimed his light down.

  A nurse’s body lay on the floor. She had an entry and exit wound through her skull. He stepped over the body and around the end of the twin sized bed, heading for the closet. He opened the door and flooded the closet with pink light. Cliff’s mother squinted her eyes when they were hit with his light.

  “Turn that shit off!” she cursed. All one hundred and ten pounds of her sat tucked back between her old leather jackets. Her wheelchair was pushed as far back as it could go to hide her away. Cliff turned off his flashlight and opened the blinds behind him. The sun instantly lit up the room.

  She rolled herself out of the closet. She wore a faded old black Led Zeppelin t-shirt and her hair was dyed jet black. So black that it was comical in contrast to her aged body.

  “Mom, what happened?”

  “How many fucking times do I have to tell you call me Morgan?!” the words bled into each other. A lifetime of legal and illegal drug and alcohol abuse had given her a permanent slur. Cliff found a bag in the closet, “What happened, Morgan?” he loaded a pharmacy’s worth of pill bottles from her nightstand into the bag.

  “Crazy bitch.” She pointed with the barrel of the gun at the nurse on the floor. “She comes in here, yelling crazy about someone biting her and she says I need to hide. I’m like, “Hey honey, I don’t give two squirts of piss about your problems, leave me the fuck alone.” Then she pushes me into the goddamn closet. You believe that? A couple minutes later she’s breakdancing on the floor. Then the bitch comes at me. So BLAM! I shot her.”

  “Why do you have a gun?” Cliff put his hand out for her to hand it over.

  “Protection! I don’t want one of those damn man nurses climbing up on me in the middle of the night. Getting his dirty rocks off. No thank you!” she slapped it into his hand.

  “What?”

  “You think cause I’m old they don’t want a piece of this? When I was your age men would fight over me!”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard the stories. Morgan we have to get out of here. Do you have any more ammo for this gun you shouldn’t have?” He grabbed her favorite black leather jacket from the closet.

  “Extra box of bullets in the drawer. Where are we going?”

  Cliff opened the nightstand drawer.

  “You’re coming home with me,” he said as he dug around and found a full box of .38 caliber.

  “I’m not leaving, are you crazy?” She wheeled her chair around to face him.

  He opened the chamber and pulled the two spent shells out and replaced them with fresh rounds.

  “There is an infection spreading and it’s not safe here. What else do you need?” He put the gun into his back pocket and dropped the rounds in the bag. He grabbed some more clothes from her dresser drawers and jammed them into the bag too.

  “What are you talking about?” She wiped the excess saliva from the corners of her mouth. Her unfocused eyes tried to stay locked with his.

  He knelt down in front of her so they were face to face, “There is some kind of infection spread through bites. Everyone else in this building is dead. I’m taking you home to stay with us. Do you understand?”

  She smiled at him and raised her hand to his face. She gently touched his cheek. Her hands were cold to the touch, “When did you cut off all your beautiful hair?” That was as close to a “Yes, I understand.” that he was going to get from her.

  He didn’t have enough hands to hold the light, cleaver, gun and also push her wheelchair. Cliff placed the cleaver into the pocket on the back of the wheelchair. The blade was long enough that the handle stuck out and was an easy grab if he needed it.

  “Okay, let’s get going.” He pulled her arms into the sleeve of her jacket.

  He grabbed the nurse’s body by the ankle and pulled her out of the way of the door. He slung the bag up onto his shoulder and wheeled her for the door.

  “We’ve got to stay quiet, all right?”

  She put her index finger up to her lips and gave him a wink.

  “That’s right. The elevator’s out so we are taking the stairs, okay?”

  “I ain’t walking down any stairs,” she said as she folded her arms in her lap.

  He opened the door and spun her around so he could be the first one out. The hall sounded clear. He pulled her out into the dark space. Got her faced in the right direction and he sprinted down the hall. The front wheels squeaked loudly at this speed.

  A figure moved out from one of the bedrooms. Cliff came to a full stop and got his flashlight up and on the moving object. An old man stood naked in front of them. His pale skin sagged off his old frame.

  “Goddamn it, put your clothes on, Phil!” Morgan turned her head in disgust.

  Phil’s teeth snapped at them and he shuffled forward with his arms outstretched.

  Chapter 9

  Karen finished off the last slice of her pizza. The salty, buttery crust flaked a little as she took the last bite. Her tongue ran a lap around her li
ps to clean up the remaining flakes. She was able to get Robin to fall asleep in her arms. Valerie had an old set of headphones on as she played her game on the Internet. Karen found them in the closet and thought it would be a good way to distract the little girl until her father finally got home. The headphones would block out any of the sounds caused by the unwanted infected monsters that might wander by.

  Karen couldn’t stop herself from compulsively checking her phone for updates on the carnage that was taking place across Portland and Vancouver. She knew that the images would haunt her, but she was desperate to find out any real information that could help her answer her questions.

  Was this happening all around the world and was there a cure?

  Most of the info she found was only guesses. Untested theories thrown together by scared humans. As far as the Internet was concerned there was no known cure. None of this was making Karen feel any better. She started to regret looking at her phone. The last link she clicked on was a disturbing article that claimed everyone was already infected. Bites from a turned person made the transition from a living human to blood thirsty murderer take place faster, but the main point of the page was that if anyone passed away for any reason they would still turn. Karen’s brain felt like it was melting from the concept.

  Everyone was already infected with something?

  How?

  Why now?

  Was it in the water or the atmosphere?

  Where did it come from?

  Did aliens drop off this disease to knock the human race off the planet so they could pillage our resources?

  She could speculate for the rest of her life and never find the answer. The anxiety caused the muscles in her back to seize up and turn into knots the size of golf balls. She needed a back rub, badly or a large glass of white wine, something to calm her frayed nerves.

  Karen put her phone down and rubbed at her shoulders. She needed to get up and off the bed. A walk around her bedroom to stretch her legs would help the soreness that was setting in after her death match with Steve. She laid Robin down on the bed and pulled the sheet over her little body. It was warm in the bedroom and the girl was fully clothed, but she did it out of habit. She had just made a full lap around the room when something outside caught her attention.

  Someone was crying. It was faint at first, but growing. She checked the window.

  Every muscle in Karen’s body twitched.

  A toddler. A little girl.

  Karen had seen her around the apartment and at the pool. The girl’s face was covered with snot. Her pajama bottoms soaked in blood. She called over and over again for her Mama. Her little feet shuffled across the apartment’s grounds. All of the buildings looked the same to a kid that didn’t know the alphabet. Karen scanned the area around her. It was clear of infected for the moment.

  Where the hell were the girl’s parents?

  Was that where the blood came from?

  All she wanted to do was pick up and comfort that baby. Karen’s body was immediately covered in a layer of sweat. She was wracked with indecision. She couldn’t leave her babies. But she couldn’t watch this one suffer either. An idea formed. Robin would be asleep for a while and Valerie would probably not look up from the computer screen for a long time.

  Karen stepped from the window and headed for the front door. She pulled one of her steak knives from the wall as she unlocked the door. She paused to think about this. Last time she left the apartment she almost got killed by Steve.

  Could she live with herself if she let something happen to that baby?

  No. She could not. Karen checked to make sure the gun was on her hip. It was locked and loaded. She opened the door. The warm spring breeze felt good on her damp skin. She locked the door and promised herself that she would only be gone a minute. She just had to grab the child and get her to her home safe and race back to her own children before they even noticed she was gone.

  She stepped softly out to the edge of the building and double-checked her surroundings before stepping farther out into the parking lot. Behind her and up on the second floor Tina’s front door opened. Karen turned and saw Tina’s head popping out the door.

  “Did you see the baby out there?” Tina’s voice wavered. She was as choked up as Karen about this abandoned child.

  “Yes,” Karen whispered up to her neighbor. Tina was already out her door and heading down the steps before Karen finished her one word sentence. Before Karen knew it she had a fellow Mama by her side and this one was armed with a recently used butcher’s knife.

  The little girl was beginning to walk away from them.

  “What’s the plan?” Tina stood shoulder to shoulder with Karen. Both of them were reluctant to leave the alcove of their apartment building and venture out into the open where the monsters lay in wait. Karen saw the look of absolute focus in this woman’s eyes and that gave her confidence that they would be okay if they kept their heads about them.

  “I was gonna see if I could call her over here and figure out which building she lives in, but with the two of us we could just go get her.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The two women raced over the asphalt. Both of them were trim, but they never worked out in the gym and they hated jogging. Twenty steps at this sprinter’s pace told them both just how out of shape they really were. Karen’s lungs burned. Her quads ached. Seeing the same pain on Tina’s face helped her not feel so bad about her conditioning.

  “Sweetheart!” Karen called to the child.

  The toddler spun on her heels. When she saw the two women racing towards her she let out a supersonic scream then turned back around and started running away.

  “Don’t run! Come back! We won’t hurt you!” Tina cried out after the little one. The little girl had some wheels on her. She was going to be a future soccer star for sure, if she lived that long.

  Karen and Tina had to turn on the jets to keep up with her. Behind one of the buildings on the far side of the property was a large, well-kept grassy field that the neighbor children would play on. The little girl sped out onto the field. She screamed at the top of her lungs the whole way.

  As Tina and Karen gained on the toddler she changed direction again and headed towards a large bush that sat in a flowerbed behind the last building on the lot. She squeezed her body between the building’s wall and the bush.

  Both women were out of breath and unable to string a sentence together, but they finally had the little girl cornered. Karen and Tina both clutched their knees and tried their best to catch their breath. They inched along the wall trying to reach for the child.

  The little girl coughed out, “Mama, Mama, Mama!”

  The thick branches of the bush kept them inches away from reaching her.

  “Come on, sweetie. We won’t hurt you. We’ll get you back to your Mama,” Karen begged the child. She felt the panic building up inside herself. She didn’t mean to be this far away from her children. If they couldn’t get the child to calm down she was going to get them all killed.

  Tina tucked the knife into the back of her belt so she could reach out with both arms, “Baby, come here. It’s okay,” she used her calming Mama tone.

  Karen kept her head on a swivel. She looked for any movement on the horizon.

  The tip of Tina’s finger brushed the child’s arm. The human contact caused the little girl to scream even louder. On the other side of the field a woman shuffled out from the tree line. Karen hoped it might be the little girl’s mother.

  The woman happened to have the same colored hair as the little girl, but it was not her mother. This thing was no longer anyone’s mother. The infected woman walked with a heavy limp. Its right ankle was broken. The thing’s lips were bright red from a recent kill. It was zeroing in on the sound of the young girl’s screams.

  “I almost got her,” Tina strained.

  “Look! There’s one coming,” Karen got Tina’s attention.

  Tina wrapped her fingers around the child’s upper ar
m and pulled her clear of the bush. Tina pulled the child up into her arms, secured the baby against her chest and it helped quiet her screams. Karen pulled her gun and readied her knife.

  Two new sets of black eyes exited the tree line behind Karen and Tina. The two new infected creatures had fully functioning legs and they sped rapidly over the grass. One of the infected wore a pair of black gym shorts and no top. Its low body fat and sculpted muscles were impressive as it zoomed at an incredible speed after the two mothers. The third infected was dressed like a hipster. It wore a tight Atari t-shirt and skinny jeans. Its thin body floated effortlessly across the field and kept pace with the ex-jock.

  “Let’s lose them around the edge of the building,” Karen said as she motioned for them to run.

  Tina took the lead. The struggling child slowed her pace, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Tina kept telling the little girl. She said it over and over trying to convince herself it was going to be okay.

  Every step they took was starting to feel like a mistake. Karen looked over her shoulder and the infected were already halfway across the field. At the rate the two infected men were moving they would be on top of the Mamas in a matter of seconds.

  The women rounded the corner of the building and ahead of them was a fence that surrounded this building’s garbage cans and recycling bins. It was the type of cyclone fence that had the hard brown plastic pieces slid diagonally throughout it.

  “Head for the fence,” Karen huffed.

  They entered the small fenced in area. Two large garbage bins filled most of the space. Tina ducked down between the two bins and Karen squeezed in next to her. Tina didn’t want to cover the little one’s mouth, but it was the only way to silence her cries. Two breaths later the infected blasted around the corner of the building. Karen was able to see them through tiny slits in the fence. She kept her gun up and ready for action.

  Both of the infected males seemed to have lost their prey. The infected lady joined her much faster gentlemen and the three of them slowed from a full tilt sprint down to a brisk walk. They looked like they were trying to listen for the fleeing ladies. They sniffed the air, but the smell of the garbage masked Karen and Tina’s scent.